Dzhon Milton

John Milton — one of the greatest poets of England, a major publicist and a figure of the Great English Revolution.

Youth. Early Works

Milton received an excellent education — first at home and at St. Paul’s School, and then at Cambridge University (1632, Master of Arts degree). After completing the course, he spent five years with his parents in the small town of Horton (near London), absorbed in self-education and self-improvement. This first youthful period of Milton’s life ended in 1637 with a journey through Italy and France, where he met Galileo, Hugo Grotius, and other famous people of the time.

In contrast to most great men, Milton spent the first half of his life in complete spiritual harmony; suffering and inner storms darkened his mature years and old age.

The bright mood of the young Milton corresponds to the character of his early poems:

* "L’Allegro" ("The Cheerful Man") and "Il Penseroso" ("The Thoughtful Man"), in which Milton depicts a person in two opposite states of mind, joyful and contemplative-melancholy, and shows how nature is colored for the observer by the changing moods. Both short poems are permeated by an immediate feeling and a special grace characteristic of Elizabethan lyric poetry, no longer to be found in Milton himself. * "Lycidas" gives subtle descriptions of idealized rural life, but the mood itself is deeper and reveals the patriotic passions hidden in the poet’s soul; the fanaticism of the Puritan revolutionary is strangely interwoven here with melancholy poetry in the Petrarchan vein. * "Comus". This is one of the most brilliant dramatic pastorals, a genre that was still not yet out of fashion at the time.

Maturity

From 1639 to 1660, the second period in his life and work lasts. Returning from Italy, he settled in London, educated his nephews, and wrote the treatise "Of Education" ("Tractate of Education, to Master Samuel Hartlib"), which is of mainly biographical interest and shows Milton’s aversion to all routine.

In 1643 he married Mary Powell — and this marriage turned his previously tranquil existence into a series